medication

My Spam Folder

So, here is what my email account spam folder contains. I always find it rather amusing to look at what I’ve been sent each day.

1. “Are YOU Interested? Ilana, you have 1 NEW Person Who Likes You…”

Yes, alright, this used to be a legitimate piece of mail until I started spamming the damn things. A couple years ago, when I was just getting to know Facebook, I somehow let some program called “Are YOU Interested?” get added to my Facebook applications, and even though I’ve tried erasing the damn thing, it haunts me with sad little messages like this. Whoopee, a NEW person likes me! How exciting!

2. “Smaller than you would like to be – Order your Men’s supplement today…”

Okay, first of all, I’m a woman. But whatever. What’s with the capitalized M? Is “man” a proper noun, now? Should I be saying that I am American and Israeli, and those two over there are Men?

3. Florene Dora – “Grow 3-inches more, Experience with BiggerPenis Today!”

Miss Dora, you need to learn grammar, honey, as well as word spacing and when it is proper to capitalize something. Proper nouns, beginning of sentences – learn your capitalization people!

4. Cleotilde Marcie – “15mg x 60 Codeine $264.00 (+4 FreeViagra Pills)”

As lovely as the name Cleotilde is (pretty sure it’s made up), I have no need to get high on codeine. Seriously, it’s sad that people have reduced cough medicine to an abused drug today. Oh, yeah, and I’m a woman (or is it Woman?) and I don’t need any Viagra, thanks.

5. “Proven to work in just weeks – Click here to find out about the revolution…”

See, I don’t open my spam emails, I just read the taglines. This one actually sounds interesting! There’s a revolution going on? A quick one, sold in a bottle? Can I set it to whatever I want? Maybe I could cause a revolution to fix the damned martial law situation in the Israeli Occupied Territories… Of course, if I opened this letter, it’d probably be: “Click here to find out about the revolutionary weight loss pills…” etc.

6. “Ten ways to make her moan in ecstasy…”

Pretty straightforward stuff, although what are they selling? I mean, it’s spam, there’s always money involved. I suppose there’s some manual or something. Or maybe just more Viagra. Yeesh.

7. Hilary Treena – “Now you can buy cializ and Enjoy! 30 pills x 20mg 89.95$…”

Another one who needs to learn how to spell. I had no idea what “cializ” was, so I looked it up. Of course, it’s Cialis, and it’s more erectile dysfunction stuff. Great. I’m a woman, people!!! And anyway, if I were a man and having difficulties, I think I would be nervous taking some knock-off pill that’s spelled wrong.

8. Sherita Angle – “Japanese movement – Large collection of BreitlingRo1ex, Movado…”

Oh, I get it. Ro1ex is actually Rolex? Why not spell it right? You spelled Movado correctly. I assume that this is an ad for fake watches. Seriously, Sherita, if I wanted fake watches, I’d go down to the flea market and buy fake watches. It’s not that hard to do, you know, I don’t actually need the fake privacy of ordering them online…

In conclusion:

Spam-bots are dumb. Spam is stupid. I have no idea how anyone would actually fall for one of these deals and give credit card details to fake companies that will just steal all their money. But hey, spam is a good source of original names for characters, right?


Advertisement

The Psychiatrist

The psychiatrist worked in her parents’ old apartment. All the old furniture was still present; the heavy wooden cabinets filled with silver platters and goblets that hadn’t been polished in decades; the low couches, uncomfortably padded with thin cushioning, that had been considered luxurious some fifty years ago; the big television that seemed to stick out like a sore thumb in the room. The psychiatrist could almost feel the ghosts of her parents walking around the apartment, grunting as they sat down heavily or groaning as they made their slow way into the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

Small wonder, then, that she was a bit mad herself.

She didn’t enjoy her work. She despised each and every one of the men, women and children that walked through the door, hating them for their assumption that they were important or that they mattered at all to her. She hadn’t cared for naught but the revenue in years. She’d been embittered, somewhere along the way, and as the years went by she could hardly hold up the pretense of caring. For instance, she now let herself answer her cellphone during sessions. She now let herself get up and make a cup of tea, leaving her patients at the dining room table, where she conducted her sessions, while they drew what she’d instructed them to. She now had to remind herself to occasionally spit out an insincere sympathetic word.

She was frightening to look at. It was just another aspect of her madness, the way she’d dyed her hair a strange shade of orange and had allowed it to grow into a sort of untamed nest atop her head; the way her clothes were several sizes too big, reminding her patients of witch’s robes as they swirled around, swallowing the light in their velvet black folds; the way her eyes were now always unfocused, not managing to stay fixed on the patients’ faces.

She was surrounded by ghosts, and her patients could feel them as well as she did. They didn’t know why they got goosebumps, but they did. They didn’t know why they felt compelled to try to meet the psychiatrist’s wandering gaze, but they did. They didn’t know why they felt compelled to run, leave, jump out the window – but they did. Most never came back.